Dutchies Pass to the Left: Exploring a Legendary Breeder’s Indoor Grow

Inside the grow room the longtime marijuana breeder who goes by the name Harry Resin photographs the 6-gram buds of Sunset Sherbet that swallow the space.

This cannabis grow doesn’t look like any I’ve seen yet – the plants are almost pure flower, starting with fat frosty purple colas on top all the way down to bowl-worthy break-offs at the base of the stems. All of the excess leaf material has been removed.

“The leaf eliminated allows for greater light penetration,” Harry explains while pointing out a small spec of green on a nug indicating that at least a tiny part of the flower has started to re-enter a vegetative state. “That’s an indication of ripening.”

Within the 12 x 18-foot indoor space – tucked away in a nondescript industrial zone near the highway in San Jose, California – one can spot many aspects of advanced techniques. Overhead there are eight dual-ended HPS Gavita lights — the winners of a test Harry conducted with a $5,000 quantum light reader courtesy of his collaborative work with Nico Escondido at High Times Magazine.

The plants themselves have been grown using a technique called “schwazzing” outlined in the $500 grow book called “Three A Light.” This grow supplies Harry’s San Francisco-based delivery service URB with its premium product. I take a puff from a fat joint of Sour Diesel and immediately begin to feel the invigorating effects brought on by the classic sativa and we’re off to view the next room.

Within this space, many of the plants appear miniaturized. When asked what strain they are Harry answers the way one would expect a breeder with more than two decades of experience crafting his own strains in Amsterdam to answer.

“They are Gorilla Glue S-1 Short Pheno,” he says, shortening the scientific term for phenotype and conveying that while these plants may have originated from this year’s most popular cannabis strain Gorilla Glue #4, they are now, at best, distant cousins.

Harry and his head grower, who goes by Bruc3 Bamm3r on Instagram, have crafted this strain by growing the original “mother” plant and then taking off a small portion, or a clone, and growing that plant for cuttings. After seven generations of plants produced from clones “you get a genetic drift,” Harry says of the strain which grows at a stunted height by the seventh iteration. This style of keeping plants small while ensuring high flower production is a technique he adopted from Europe where, unlike California, physical grow space is often confined to closer quarters.

Before the day’s end we sample Pink Champagne shatter from the dab rig Harry appears to have on hand at all times. The strain, Bruc3 Bamm3r says, only yielded a pound a light but turned out to be a “hash maker’s dream.” It looks like clear, amber, sea glass and tastes like a mouthful of ripe raspberries. Like a traditional glass of bubbly, it goes straight to your head. Harry adds in one last tidbit of information before the heavily sedative effects of the multiple dabs taken together set in.

“It’s not the THC level that gets you high,” he says shattering the notion that THC levels alone are responsible for marijuana’s psychoactive nature. “The terpenes humalene and limonene work with the THC to make the high more concentrated.”

Originally published in Issue 23 of Cannabis Now. LEARN MORE.

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